Riding the Red Horse

by Christopher Nuttall

  “I think the truth still matters.”

  “Yeah, I'd like to think so too. Who do you work for?”

  “I'm freelance. After I write this report I’m going to shop it through the Terran News Syndicate.”

  He chuckled bitterly. “Freelance, huh? I should have known. Look, Miss Anders, most of what I said is on the public record. The truth is already out there. But the media isn’t reporting it. So I have just one question for you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Who do you think is going to buy this story from you? Who do you think will run it?”

  Editor's Introduction to:

  MAKE THE TIGERS FIGHT: SOVIET STRATEGY IN ASIA, 1925 – 1975

  by James D. Perry

  James D. Perry has a BA in History from Arizona State University, an MA in Security Policy Studies and a PhD in History from George Washington University. His graduate work focused on military history and Cold War national security strategy, culminating in a dissertation on the foreign policy of President Kennedy. After completing his PhD, he was a Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University. He then worked for a defense contractor in McLean, Virginia, where he conducted research and analysis on issues of strategy, military innovation, and asymmetric warfare. He developed and ran numerous wargames that explored the problems of anti-access versus power projection.

  He is currently a Senior Analyst for a major aerospace corporation, where he supports the company's unmanned aircraft and long-range strike programs. He is the author of numerous articles on military history and national security issues, and frequently speaks at history conferences.

  In the following piece, Dr. Perry focuses on the efforts of the Soviet Union to create security and advance its interests along its borders by fomenting quarrels between its neighbors and near neighbors, or between neighbors and more distant but powerful adversaries. There are several points of contention in the piece, and I fully expect them to be contested. However, whatever minor arguments there may be on the details, three things stand out. One is that these techniques should be studied because they're available to us as well as to our enemies. Indeed, we should expect them to be used on us. The second is that in war, nothing fails like success. The last is that although the Soviet Union is no more, the Russians are still making tigers fight, and they are still aiming those efforts in our direction.

  MAKE THE TIGERS FIGHT: SOVIET STRATEGY IN ASIA, 1925 – 1975

  by James D. Perry

  “Sit on the mountain and watch the tigers fight.”—Chinese proverb

  A common gambit in multi-player competitions is to improve one’s position without cost or risk by standing aside while two other players fight. This strategy is especially appealing to weaker players who fear that stronger opponents will attack them. Many nations have profited from the quarrels of others. For example, Great Power wars in Europe greatly facilitated the birth and survival of the United States; in the words of diplomatic historian Samuel Flagg Bemis, from 1776 to 1815, “Europe’s distress was America’s advantage.” European exhaustion in two world wars from 1914 to 1945 enabled America to become a global superpower. America was an economic colossus before 1914, but lacked the will and capability for sustained worldwide military and political engagement until World War II destroyed the existing world order. As David Reynolds notes, “America’s transformation from power to superpower was very much the consequence of World War II.”[1]

  Some states do not just passively benefit from the quarrels of others, but actively seek to foment and protract such wars. For example, from 1925 through 1975, the Soviet Union repeatedly sought to promote war between its major enemies and third parties. This strategy did not work as planned in Europe. From 1939 to 1941, Britain, France and Germany fought while the USSR remained neutral, but the unexpected collapse of France in 1940 allowed Germany to turn against Russia. Yet the strategy succeeded spectacularly in Asia. The Soviets helped to create the conditions that caused Japan to attack China, and then supported China to ensure Japanese exhaustion. They also facilitated the Japanese attack on Britain and America in 1941. Stalin fomented the Korean War in 1950, and successfully brought America and China into conflict in order to isolate China and make her dependent on the USSR. The Soviets sponsored North Vietnamese aggression from 1959 to 1975 in order to weaken the United States, pressure the Chinese, and buy time to redress Soviet strategic weapons inferiority.

  Moscow and the Sino-Japanese War

  In January 1925, Stalin noted that the Bolshevik Revolution probably would not have survived if the capitalist countries had not been locked in mortal combat in 1917—“the struggle, conflicts and wars between our enemies, I repeat, constitute an extremely important ally for us.”[2] After the war, the capitalist countries stabilized their relations. Stalin noted regretfully that war between the capitalist powers was unlikely in the immediate future. Nevertheless, he thought a new world war was ultimately inevitable. Such a war would create a revolutionary crisis in the capitalist camp, and was bound to affect the USSR. He argued that the USSR had to prepare for all contingencies, and strengthen the Red Army. The Soviet Union would attack after the capitalists had exhausted themselves:

  If war breaks out we shall not be able to sit with folded arms. We shall have to take action, but we shall be the last to do so. And we shall do so in order to throw the decisive weight in the scales, the weight that can turn the scales. [3]

  —J.V. Stalin, “Speech Delivered at a Plenum of the Central Committee of the R.C.P.(B.),” 19 January 1925

  In his speeches, Stalin also noted that “backward countries” sought to escape European domination. He stressed the need to support “national liberation” movements in order to weaken Britain and France.[4] This had particular importance in Asia. Between 1920 and 1930 Communist parties were founded in China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaya, Mongolia, Persia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. These parties naturally looked to Moscow for guidance and support. Moreover, the Soviets established their first client states in Asia in this period. In 1921, the Red Army invaded Mongolia and Tuva; the latter was annexed to the USSR in 1944.

  China was the most important target for Soviet subversion in the 1920s and 1930s.[5] At first the Soviets directed the Chinese Communists to infiltrate and thus gain control of the Chinese nationalist party (the Kuomintang, or KMT) and its army. The KMT leader, Chiang Kai Shek, recognized this threat and expelled the Communists. After a futile revolt, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) decided in August 1927 to create an independent political military force—the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)—in the Chinese hinterland. China policy was a central issue in the dispute between Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin prevailed, and thus his policy of support for guerrilla warfare and the establishment of revolutionary bases prevailed. He expected that in due course the CCP would challenge the KMT for control of China. Meanwhile, protracted civil war would hinder the emergence of a unified China on the USSR’s southern frontier.

  In the 1920s, local warlords controlled much of China. Chiang forced them to submit to his rule. His “Northern Expedition” nominally unified China in December 1928 with the capture of Peking—though he had yet to subdue the Communists, and the warlords remained fractious afterward. KMT troops had not entered Manchuria, lest they provoke a reaction from Japan. In 1929, the warlord who controlled Manchuria, Chang Hsueh-liang, unwisely seized control of the Chinese Eastern Railway (CER), the Soviet-owned line that ran across Manchuria. The Soviets invaded Manchuria with 100,000 troops and quickly forced China to accept Soviet control of the CER. At Soviet direction, the PLA stepped up guerrilla activities to tie down KMT troops during the crisis.

  When the Soviets intervened in Manchuria, they were careful not to encroach on Japanese interests. Nevertheless, the Northern Expedition combined with the brief but convincing display of Soviet military prowess during the CER crisis seriously alarmed Japan. If Japan remained passive, either the KMT or th
e USSR would displace Chang Hsueh-liang’s weak forces and occupy Manchuria. To prevent this, Japan occupied Manchuria in September 1931. Along with the brief occupation of Shanghai in early 1932, this also drew KMT troops away from their efforts to crush CCP enclaves in southeastern China.

  The Japanese occupation of Manchuria posed a dire threat to the Soviet Far East. Japan now had a 2,000-mile border with the USSR. All Soviet supplies and reinforcements had to move along the Trans-Siberian Railroad only a few miles from the border. Another Soviet concern was that European powers would combine with Japan to launch a two-front war on the USSR. In 1931 and 1932, the Soviets feared a Polish-Japanese attack on the USSR. When Hitler came to power in 1933, the Soviets dreaded a German-Japanese attack long before Germany was militarily capable of aggression. In the Far East itself, the Soviet response to the Japanese threat was to fortify their border and increase its forces there from about 100,000 men in 1931 to 570,000 in 1939.

  Strategically, the Soviets tried to divide their enemies. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 and the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality Pact of 1941 were the clearest expressions of this approach. Each pact drove a wedge between Germany and Japan and hindered the formation of an effective anti-Soviet coalition. The Soviets also sought allies via the 1932 Polish-Soviet Pact, the 1935 Franco-Soviet Pact, and the 1937 Sino-Soviet Pact. Finally, the Soviets diverted aggression away from their own borders, and encouraged other countries to fight Germany and Japan for as long as possible. The Nazi-Soviet Pact diverted German aggression onto Britain and France. The Soviets supplied Germany with raw materials to keep that conflict going for as long as possible. The Japanese-Soviet Pact diverted Japanese aggression onto Britain and America. While the Pact was in force, the USSR scrupulously refrained from taking any action to pin down Japanese forces in Manchuria and thus ease Anglo-American difficulties.[6]

  In Asia, the Soviets particularly feared a truce between Chiang and the Japanese, or worse yet, an anti-Soviet alliance. Any truce or accord would have freed Japan to turn against the USSR, and allowed Chiang to focus on eliminating the CCP. Fortunately for the Soviets, the negotiations between Chiang and the Japanese never bore fruit—the Japanese occupation of Chinese territory was a major sticking point. Throughout the 1930s, the Soviets attempted to draw Chiang into a formal alliance—at last succeeding in 1937—and to protract the Sino-Japanese conflict by aiding Chiang. The Soviets also demanded that the CCP cooperate with Chiang against the Japanese (the so-called United Front policy). The main obstacle to this policy in the early 1930s was Chiang’s determination to crush the Communists.

  In 1932, the KMT resumed its efforts to destroy the CCP, and liquidated two Communist enclaves (“soviets”) by the end of the year. The KMT prepared for another assault, but then the Japanese attacked in north China. The threat to Peking forced Chiang to redeploy his troops north once again. Nonetheless, the Communists were unable to stop the relentless KMT advance. The CCP decided to abandon its stronghold in Kiangsi province and retreated to Shansi province in the north. The CCP hoped to make contact with the USSR through Sinkiang, where in 1933 the Soviets had established a puppet government backed with Red Army troops. The CCP’s 6,000-mile trek—the famous “Long March”—took place from October 1934 to October 1935. It cost the PLA ninety percent of its initial force.

  Meanwhile, in early 1935, Germany announced the introduction of military conscription and the creation of the Luftwaffe, both of which were forbidden under the Treaty of Versailles. The Soviets believed this was directed against them. In the summer of 1935, Moscow ordered the Communist International (the Comintern) to require world Communist parties to unite with non-Communist parties to fight “fascism”. The CCP announced their willingness to cease fighting Chiang and to subordinate their military to the KMT, but this did not come to pass immediately. Chiang continued to attack the decimated Communists until the “Sian Incident” intervened.

  In December 1936, Chiang flew to the city of Sian to meet Chang Hsueh-liang, the local KMT commander. Chang had yielded to Communist entreaties not to attack them. Chiang attempted to relieve Chang, but instead Chang took Chiang prisoner. The elated CCP called for Chiang’s execution, which would split the KMT and perhaps give the CCP control of the United Front in China. Stalin was aghast. Chiang’s execution would weaken Chinese resistance to Japan and possibly cause the subsequent KMT leadership to come to terms with Japan. Stalin thus ordered the CCP to settle the dispute peacefully. After Chiang’s release, he relaxed the military pressure on the CCP. He agreed to unite with the Communists in a “nationwide war of resistance” against Japan.

  The Sian Incident was Stalin’s master stroke—it ensured that Japan would launch an all-out war against China, as he desired. The KMT not only ceased attacking the CCP, but turned away from negotiations with Japan and aligned with the USSR. Japan could no longer hope to play the Nationalists and Communists against each other, and therefore attacked in force in July 1937. Japanese troops immediately took Peking, and by the end of the year captured Shanghai and Nanking despite a stout Chinese defense.

  Stalin wanted to protract the conflict to weaken Japan and prevent her from turning against him. The USSR thus concluded a Non-Aggression Pact with China in August 1937. Even before the ink was dry, the USSR violated its pledge to refrain from aggression against China with an invasion of Sinkiang to support the pro-Soviet warlord there. The treaty also prohibited making agreements with third parties to the disadvantage of either signatory. For Stalin, this provision was designed to prevent China from reaching a settlement with Japan (a settlement he flagrantly violated himself when he signed a non-aggression pact with Japan in April 1941). Stalin also aided the Chinese to ensure they kept Japan bogged down. During the next four years, the USSR supplied China with 900 aircraft, 2,000 “volunteer” pilots, 1,140 artillery pieces, 82 tanks, tens of thousands of rifles and machine guns, ammunition, and a $250 million loan.

  In early 1938, the Japanese established a Chinese client government in Nanking. Japanese forces pursued KMT troops up the Yangtze towards the industrial city of Wuhan, and captured it in October. However, Japan’s advance was briefly restrained by a border clash with the USSR at Lake Khasan, near Vladivostok, in July. The Soviets interpreted this as a test of their border defenses. When Germany dismantled Czechoslovakia with Anglo-French complicity a mere two months later, the dreaded two-front war against the USSR seemed closer than ever. The Soviets accordingly pressured the KMT and CCP to fight Japan more aggressively. Above all, Stalin wished them to resist Japanese demands to capitulate.

  With the capture of Canton, Japan controlled Manchuria, northern China and the coastal ports. Thereafter, China could only receive external assistance overland through Sinkiang, Burma, and Indochina. Britain controlled Burma and France controlled Indochina. Japan pressured the British to close the Burma route for three months in late 1940, occupied Indochina in 1940, and conquered Burma in 1942. In late 1938, the KMT government retreated to Chungking, but refused to surrender. Japan believed that the growth of German power would render outside powers unable to assist China effectively. Thus, Japan settled down to await developments. Apart from the 1944 operation that eliminated American bomber bases in southern China, Japan conducted no further major offensives in China.

  Despite the stalemate, over half the Japanese Army was tied down in China. This represented success from Stalin’s perspective. Moreover, the Soviets later dealt Japan a crushing blow when it attempted to encroach on the territory of the USSR’s client state, Mongolia. At the Battle of Khalkhin Gol in August 1939, the Soviets surrounded and destroyed a Japanese division, inflicting some 17,000 casualties. The power and effectiveness of the Soviet tanks and aircraft shocked the Japanese, who thereafter treated the prospect of war with the USSR with great caution.

  The Japanese were further dismayed in August 1939 when the Nazis and Soviets signed a Non-Aggression Pact. Stalin intended the pact to encourage the Germans to attack Britain and France. He expected a prolon
ged war in the West, after which he would attack the exhausted belligerents. But this was not to be, as France rapidly collapsed. The Pact also served to split Germany and Japan, and reduce the possibility of a two-front attack on the USSR. The Japanese noted bitterly that their only ally, Germany, had betrayed them and left them at the mercy of their most hated enemy, the USSR. Nazi perfidy caused many Japanese to question Germany’s value as an alliance partner. In the end, however, partnership with Germany seemed better than abject submission to America.

  In China, the Nazi-Soviet Pact put the United Front on hold for nine months, during which the CCP attempted to expand at KMT expense. After the stunning surrender of France in June 1940, the renewed threat of a two-front war once again made prevention of Sino-Japanese reconciliation a top Soviet priority. Consequently, under pressure from Stalin, the CCP announced a reversal of their expansion policy and a return to the United Front in July 1940.

  That same month, Hitler decided to attack the USSR in the summer of 1941. He concluded the Tripartite Pact with Japan and Italy in September 1940. The pact stated that Germany, Italy, and Japan would “assist one another with all political, economic and military means if one of the Contracting Powers is attacked by a Power at present not involved in the European War or in the Japanese-Chinese conflict.”[7] This could refer to the United States or the USSR, although the pact also stated that it “affects in no way the political status existing at present between each of the three Contracting Powers and Soviet Russia.” Principally, Hitler hoped the pact would intimidate the United States during the German assault on the USSR, but this failed. Instead, America made greater efforts to support the beleaguered British.